AntiPolygraph.org. DSS Withholds Key Portions of Federal Polygraph Handbook

Transcription

1 AntiPolygraph.org 25 April 2002 DSS Withholds Key Portions of Federal Polygraph Handbook The Defense Security Service (DSS, the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute's parent agency) has released to AntiPolygraph.org under the Freedom of Information Act portions of the Federal Psychophysiological Detection of Deception Examiner Handbook dated 3 July DSS's cover letter, along with the released portions of the Handbook, are attached. The Department of Defense, in its Polygraph Program Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2000 described this handbook in the following terms: The Department published a handbook for all federal polygraph examiners which sets forth standardized techniques and procedures for conducting polygraph examinations. The handbook also outlines a Quality Assurance Program (QAP) wherein DODPI inspects federal polygraph programs to ensure compliance with both those techniques and procedures taught at DODPI and the continuing education requirements established by the polygraph community for polygraph examiners. However, the DSS has withheld all portions of the Handbook that set forth the standardized techniques and procedures for conducting polygraph examinations, stating in part: The information contained in the PDD Examiner Handbook, which is not generally known to the public, is designed solely to instruct law enforcement and national security investigators and does not "regulate the public." The material identifies specific applications of techniques and procedures used in polygraph matters and disclosure could enable circumvention of polygraph test [sic] by others. Accordingly, DSS is not going to release any information that could possibly benefit those attempting to reduce the effectiveness of the polygraph or violate the law and avoid detection. This amounts to a tacit admission by DSS that polygraphy depends on public ignorance of the standardized techniques and procedures for conducting polygraph examinations. AntiPolygraph.org is aware of no legitimate forensic technique that depends on such public ignorance. Moreover, by withholding the standardized techniques and procedures for conducting polygraph examinations from the public, DSS prevents any member of the public from independently verifying whether any polygraph examination of relevance to any criminal, civil, or administrative matter was conducted in accordance with

2 DoDPI standards. Again, AntiPolygraph.org is aware of no legitimate forensic technique that is accorded such protection from independent review. Recent prominent cases highlight the need for independent review of whether a polygraph examination was conducted in accordance with DoDPI's standardized techniques and procedures. For example, on 3 April 2001, LT Robert A. Bailey, USN, testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Special Agent Robert Hyter, a polygrapher with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, in 1999 conducted polygraph examinations of CTR1 Daniel M. King under sleep-deprived conditions following abusive interrogation regarding the relevant issues. Are these practices consistent with DoDPI techniques and procedures? In A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage, journalists Dan Stober and Ian Hofmann write that the FBI lured Los Alamos scientist Dr. Wen Ho Lee into a polygraph examination under false pretenses and that the polygrapher (Rich Hobgood) conducted the examination in an uncomfortably overheated room with one of the polygraph attachments painfully tightened. Are these practices consistent with DoDPI techniques and procedures? We cannot know, because DSS deems it necessary to keep the public ignorant of those techniques and procedures. Incredibly, DSS has even redacted certain terms and their definitions from the Handbook's glossary, which it otherwise released. DSS's invocation of secrecy is inconsistent with DoDPI's public position that "psychophysiological detection of deception" (polygraphy) is a forensic technique. Forensic tests are necessarily science-based, and they don't depend on public ignorance of how they work. AntiPolygraph.org fully intends to appeal DSS's decision to withhold portions of the Federal Psychophysiological Detection of Deception Examiner Handbook and welcomes public comment regarding this matter either through the AntiPolygraph.org message board or by to info@antipolygraph.org.

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24